Category Archives: journal

It’s May 23rd. I haven’t posted anything in over a week. I guess not much happened except to say my pool league and I will not be going to Vegas after all.

I can spin it into a long drawn out tail, but it doesn’t change the fact that we lost. We lost by one measly point. We were down to the wire, almost mid-night, I was up against a 5 or a 6 level player – I’m only a level 2. Everyone from both teams stood still in silent anticipation as they watched my opponent and I duke it out.

I scored a point, and needed one more to win. The rest of my team had shit luck so it all came down to me. I was the last man on deck when usually I’m the first to shoot.

Truth is, I could’ve beaten him if I hadn’t drank so much but I was nervous as hell. I kept him on the rails all night though, he took me seriously and brought his A game. Everyone was getting so tired, our game lasted forever and everyone knew I had a fair shot at winning it. We were all on edge.

So anyways, that happened.

Something else happened too. We had such a good Mother’s Day turn out with selling gift certificates, so good in fact that I can buy an electric bicycle and ride it up to Bar Harbor Maine this year. I can’t ride it across the whole goddamned country like I originally planned, but I can make it to Bar Harbor and back. It’s 800 miles and will take me at least 17 days to complete. 800 miles there and back I mean.

While I was brushing over the possibility in my head, I went on Adventure cycling.com to check for any updates regarding their GPS technology. Last time I checked, two years ago, there weren’t any straight forward GPS apps. Just paper maps and zip files.

Serious bicycle tourists would spend upwards of $400 for a special waterproof GPS unit that can be strapped to their handlebars. The cyclist can then download zip files of maps into that special GPS unit. It sounds all very complicated and pricey to me.

But two years later and well….yeah, there’s an app for that. Adventure cycling partnered with Google Maps and now we have turn-by-turn navigation. It even shows you where all the campsites and bike shops are. It’s incredible to say the least.

But the ebike I want costs $4000…….I can’t afford $4000. I can’t go on this trip even with the easy nav app they got now.

I went online to check out the latest electric bicycles and found a really good one for a mere $2500. The battery on the $2500 bike is even better than the one on the $4000 bike. The bike is from Electric Bike Company who manufactures their bicycles in California.

My dream of riding a bicycle all the way to Bar Harbor became a little more possible after discovering this bike. And with the new GPS app, making it nearly impossible to get lost…..well, it was the feather that pushed me over.

And that’s where I’m at right now. I’m looking at the ebike and looking at my bank account. It’ll be tight. Very tight. Especially with having to pay my lawyer another 5 grand any day now. If I don’t do anything, if I don’t buy an ebike, I’ll not have to worry about money for a while but it’s like I purposely do this to myself.

I forgot when this plan all came together. Having the money, finding a better, less expensive bike, the easy navigation app – it’s been at least a week. And in this past week, I’ve been having trouble sleeping because I’m excited. This always happens when I’m excited. I can’t sleep.

During one of these sleepless nights, I found myself on YouTube watching solo campers camping in the rain. It was so very peaceful to hear the pitter-patter of the rain on the tent and a guy relaxing inside talking into the camera and eating beef jerky or cooking his soup on his little oven.

One guy cooked up some lamb chops in the rain and savagely ate them as he chatted into his camera. Talking about not much of anything. And I loved seeing him cook his meal and listening to his idle chatter.

I bought myself an ultralight camp stove and frying pan. So I can cook meat and savagely eat it in the outdoors too.

I also bought an ultralight tent. It’s an MSR Hubba NX. And I bought a Big Agnes ultralight air mattress.

Walking across Spain, twice now, can’t compare to anything like true camping. The first time I went to Spain, I did it to be alone and to rough it, to toughen myself up. The second time I went was to lose weight because I knew the “roughing it” and being alone part wasn’t going to happen.

But riding a bike to Maine will provide me with sufficient alone time plus the added bonus of being able to camp out. It’s a trip that I truly want to take and I’ll get to do it in my own country! Not that it’s any safer. It’s less safe actually. But there’s no airfare, jet lag, foreign languages…etc.

I just need to hop on over to that website and buy my bike. I should do it right now. But then the fear will set in. The fear of not having enough. I hate that fear more than anything.

Ugh, I can’t win. I really can’t. I just want some peace and quiet.

But if I get this bike, I can also ride it to work. I’ll get to exercise a bit and god knows I need exercise.

I don’t know what to do.

Okay, I figured out what to do. I’ll sell my old scooter first. That’ll free up space in the shed and give me an extra $300. Then I’ll start depositing the cash my business makes into my personal account. Once I have $3000 in my personal account, I’ll buy the bike. Right now I only have $150 in that account. I rarely deposit cash. People pay mostly with credit cards. It’ll take a while, but I have time and by doing it this way, I’ll not have to deal with that crazy-ass fear. I hate the fear.

My trip will have to wait but at least now I have a solid plan that doesn’t involve me entering the fear. It’s probably one of the top five fears to face in life, it’s my personal number one fear but I’m sure others experienced worse.

It’s odd that so much can happen in the span of one week and yet, nothing changes at the same time. It’s like, all this is happening inside my head, you know? It’s all mental. And even with all these changes that happen mentally each week, I’m still the same person. I’m still me but only with a different focal point.

It’s sad that I lost focus on my blog over the years. I used to obsess over it. It was Christmas everyday because of my blog. But back then I didn’t have the fear like I do now. It’s crippling. It’s there looming in my peripherals.

I just want to get back to my old self. I think that’s why I want to go on this trip. To be away from everything that effects me negatively. But to go on this trip would mean to feel the fear again – because of spending $2500 on an ebike. I’m just going to have to suck it up and wait a bit.

Honestly, if I stop spending so much freaking money, I’ll have my ebike this time next month.

I normally would sell a few signature couples on Groupon for a LOT of expendable cash and put myself on the schedule to massage them but I can’t do that with the business in Bozrah. It’s still not busy enough for Breanna to quit Massage Envy, so I’m needed there to take clients.

As of now we have 24 unredeemed vouchers and 18 redeemed vouchers. We’re still in pre-launch. Groupon has seriously effed up my plans. I can’t leave for Bar Harbor now anyway, not with Groupon not selling our deals properly.

I’ll check in with you next week. I’m curious to see what changes happen in the coming week. It all comes down to the business in Bozrah. That’s all I’m waiting on now. It’s really all I’ve been waiting on since we opened.

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I experienced a profound amount of stress that I hadn’t felt in years last week. And now? A week later? It’s the complete opposite.

I sent out a Mother’s day email last Tuesday, on the 7th, and today, the 11th, my bank account is back to where it needs to be. I became so over-joyed by this that I finally bought a pair of Birkenstock sandals that I’ve wanted for the last decade. And a new pair of pants and a new top from Nordstrom’s. I love my new pants so much that I can wear them rollerblading, hiking, I can wear them to work and lounging around. I love my new pants. They are my summer 2018 everyday pants.

They come with a belt so when I start losing my baby fat again, I can cinch them up. They’re so loose that they work for fat or skinny.

And my Rollerblades are ready. After months of waiting, months of hassle, my rollerblades are finally ready. You want to hear my Rollerblade story? It’s pretty boring, but if you insist…

K2’s are my definitive choice in Rollerblades. I ordered the best of the best K2 skate back in February where they got hung up on back-order. To bide my time since the weather was starting to clear, I bought a pair of Rollerblade brand skates until the skates I actually wanted came in. I did not like the Rollerblade brand skate. I thought maybe if I switch out the wheels for something smaller, they would be okay but I looked on Amazon for the best wheels and saw that a $100 pair of K2 rollerblades were only $40 more than if I purchased only the wheels. So I bought the $100 pair of K2 skates. They suck by the way.

Then my ultimate skates arrived. The ones I’ve been waiting all this time for. They are wonderful, amazing, perfect. Even with the large 90mm wheels, I feel confident and safe rolling around in them. But they are fast. I don’t need to go fast, I need resistance to lose weight, so I switched the 90mm wheels with the 80mm that came with the $100 pair of skates and now they are ready for action.

I haven’t tried them yet with the 80mm wheels. I was going to ride them today before work but I had trouble falling to sleep last night so I’m pretty shot today.

Rollerblading has always been a joy for me. It is my ticket to health, so I can’t fuck around with it. I grew out of my last pair of K2’s, my left big toe started to push against the hard material as I glided.

Anyway, I have my new favorite pair of pants, sandals that will literally last me a decade, a magic pair of rollerblades, money in the bank, my new business on the brink of completion – just waiting for the onslaught of Groupon clients……as for my pool league, get this – Last week we all played so shitty. It really affected me emotionally to lose like that. But last Tuesday? Something amazing happened. All of us won!

Even after our hard loss last week, we are now only one point shy of first place. This Tuesday coming up is play-off’s. We’re pumped for it. It’s actually pretty rare for teams to end up in Vegas. They have to jump through a lot of hoops to get there. But for us, it’s not only possible, but probable.

I was at the end of my audiobook last night. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. The book started getting good at the end and I couldn’t stop listening to it. I need to stop listening to books like that before bed and stick with meditation or Eckhart Tolle, something along those lines. Maybe listening to the bible would be next to impossible to stay awake.

I need to get up and get dressed.

I just can’t get over the contrast between last week and this week. Last week I was stuck wearing my boots with the heel falling off because I didn’t own a pair of sandals and hated putting on my one pair of jeans that still fit because the hole in the knee became so large that I needed to pin it closed with a safety pin. Last Tuesday playing pool, I had to play barefoot in my hobo jeans as I slugged down beer after beer. But I still won – we still won.

Little changes make for the biggest impact. What a difference a new pair of pants and a decent pair of sandals make.

My next mission will be to clean my room. The problem with that is, I have nowhere to put anything. My Dad taught me how to throw shit away, I have no qualms about that, but I don’t throw things away if I love or need them. A lot of it is paperwork for the businesses, borrowed books I never read, facial supplies when we offered facials at work, it’s tough being constricted to only one room with having 38 years of stuff. I should actually have more stuff. Where the hell does all my money go anyway?

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Instead of writing a post last Monday, I went to see The Avengers Infinity Wars movie and then I played free pool at the closest dive bar near my new business in Bozrah.

I had about 5 hours to kill.

I interviewed Breanna, a young cute blonde girl, who I decided right away that no, I’ll hire the older, more experienced woman instead.

By the time I texted the other woman, she already found another job.

Damn.

So now I’m stuck with this young dumb blonde. She sounded dumb, the way she talks, like a high school kid, but she was on point with her questions. She worked at a few shitty places before finding me, so she knew what to ask.

I haven’t experienced this amount of stress in about two years. I’ve spent so much money these past few months that my bank account is in the red zone and not only that, but my new business has got my guts all twisted up.

My new business is so new, that we have no reviews yet. The first review is paramount. And Dawn, my new therapist yesterday, accidentally charged a client $181 when it was supposed to be $18.

Fuck.

I have my entire life riding on this new business and the first review is critical. So critical that it can either make or break me.

I had my pool league yesterday. It was the first time I felt the weight of stress and had it effect my pool game. But I at least scored a point. It was actually a good thing that I didn’t win since I’m trying to stay a 2.

But then my buddy Chris wanted to play me and so I left the area where my team was playing to go play Chris.

I swear to god, I know this sounds ridiculous, but the moment I said Yes, I’ll play you, I had a sinking feeling that my team would tank without me there cheering them on. I just knew it. And sure enough, they tanked.

We were one point away from first place and now….now….I want to cry. I think it’s all my fault.

But I couldn’t turn down Chris. His mother is home dying of cancer, recently diagnosed. His heart is broken.

I drank so much last night. I drank a lot and woke up at 6AM today for some god-awful reason.

I’m going to eat some eggs and go back to sleep. I told Mo I’d meet her out at 3:45 today for some $2 miller lights.

Here’s a break-down of my finances….

I have $1783 in my main bank account right now. Yesterday I had $7000 – you see how it jumps? You see why I freak out like I do?

Okay, so $1783 (which is the lowest it’s been in a VERY long time), and then I’ll get $4710 from my member clients which brings me back up to $6493 and I should be getting a groupon check on the fifth for at least $2000, which will take me up to $8493 ($14,000 is my uber happy zone). And then I wait and pray we have a few strong weeks ahead of us. My independent contractors still need to cash their checks which will take me down to $7493, and rent for the new place will leave me with $7000. If I can make $2000 in the next two weeks, I’ll get by. Albeit, just barely.

I’d be getting by just fine if I didn’t spend a shit-ton of $$ these past few months. I have to remember that this is temporary. I sold a bunch of groupons to help make up for it, and I’m glad for that check coming on the fifth or I’d be seriously fucked.

It’s just that I wouldn’t be so worried if I didn’t have to pay my lawyer another $5,000 soon. I’m freaking out about it because it couldn’t have happened at a worse time than now.

Plus Dawn’s mistake with charging that guy so much money by accident…..It’s a lot for me to handle right now. It’s the first real stress I felt since moving my business to its new location 2 years ago.

Anyway, I feel a lot better now after writing about it. It’s good to write out all of my problems, it’s like making a To Do list. I sweep away all the confusion and see what’s really happening. Like pouring glitter on a sheet of paper where there are words written in glue. Once you dump all the excess glitter off, you’re left with a clearer understanding of the situation.

That’s what my blog does for me anyway. I wish I had no problems to write about though.

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Life is like skydiving. When you first jump out of the plane, everything is spinning and confusing but the guy strapped to your back steadies the both of you. His life is dependent on how well he can protect your own.

After a while, everything becomes clear. You steady yourself. You think you have it all figured out. Time freezes for a while and it feels like you’ll never land or grow old. You no longer need the guy strapped to your back. You wish you can enjoy this time independently, enjoying the full experience of this wonderful freedom.

But then the ground steadily approaches. You are once again happy that you have a man strapped to your back.

He yanks the ripcord to open the parachute.

This latter half of the jump can be serene and pretty, there’s no more rush or worry if the chute may or may not open. It’s opened and you can relax. This is where you’re able to truly take it all in, to catch your breath and count your blessings. Time is no longer frozen, you are no longer suspended in mid-air. Time runs differently in a way only someone with appreciation can understand.

You can sip your lemonade on the dock of the bay. Mixed with whiskey and rye. No rush, no more worry.

It seems that the age of 40 is the appropriate time to pull the chute. When you can literally see and feel the ground approaching more rapidly than before. 40 is the age for everyone to pull their chutes, but they either can’t or they won’t. For some it may mean giving up on that brief glimpse of exhilarating freedom they experienced years before. For others, it’s circumstance. Whether it be loss of a job or loss of the man strapped to their back.

These days, mostly everybody is still in free-fall. And the closer the ground approaches, they feel like time is running out. This is why older people are technologically disadvantaged – they don’t have time for such “nonsense”. There’s no time, no time for anything. Time is only for those still frozen high up in mid-fall, and not for those who must work even harder now that they’re not young anymore.

I’ve been unknowingly searching for the ripcord to my parachute since opening up my second business. Not to be confused with my third business, the one that I’m working on now, but my second. Surprisingly enough, I was still in the frozen free-fall when I opened up my first business. I was completely oblivious.

But now I see it. I can see the necessary chapters in life that we all must write. Steps that we must unavoidably take in order to prolong our longevity and deepen our experiences.

For me personally, freedom is by far the most precious facet of our time spent. It’s not time itself – time can be spent in agony, suffering, isolated and alone, but freedom? I’ll take a short life of freedom over a long life spent in torment.

And I am free. Well, almost. Pulling that ripcord for me personally, isn’t about finding a steady job, or settling down with a sturdy providing husband, no. It’s about finding my financial freedom – a freedom that doesn’t exchange time for money. A type of freedom that places me above the airplane that I unceremoniously ejected out of. It’s like being granted a second life. A life where I’m my own guy strapped to my back. Not only am I my own guy, but I’m my own parachute. I’m the ground approaching, I’m the sky and the wind in-between. I take on all roles, embodying everything.

Anyway, what the hell else am I going to do with myself? This life is magically long enough to manually change its trajectory at any age.

To each his own, right? And all I want is money. That’s all I want. Simple people like simple things.

Ayahuasca, Eckhart Tolle, pretty much ALL the guru’s that ever existed, all of them told me to let go of all desire, only then I’ll obtain everything. But ayahuasca also told me that we desire things because we fear our life will not be enough without them – we seek happiness to obliterate this fear, aka, void. There is an emptiness we must fill, and that is why we desire.

Another way of looking at this catch-22, is to focus our attention on the fear itself governing the desire. Forget about the desire for a moment, and look at the fear. What are you most afraid of? Never amounting to anything, not being respected, always someone’s lapdog, living in poverty…etc. Sure, those are all well and good fears but why should you be afraid of something when you have the power to change things?

You know what I think everyone’s greatest fear is? The fear of failure. Plain and simple. I’d go deeper into explaining why I think it’s the fear of failure, but that’s a bit off subject. Maybe I’ll circle back to it. It’s pretty important.

Weird, my right ear just started ringing. I was listening to the background noise of my family upstairs and all of a sudden everything went quiet and there was a ringing in my right ear. Hold on, gotta google that shit.

Okay, it stopped. Lasted about 7 seconds. It’s good luck that it was my right ear and not my left.

Okay, so anyway….where was I?

Oh right, the fear of failure. To me, the fear of failure trumps all other fears because if you were truly fearful of losing your job, you’ll take appropriate action to remedy it.

Quit and find a different job. “Screw it” is always my sloppy non-thought-out advice I offer to everyone.

But people don’t change their current situation most likely because they are pussy’s. They’re scared of falling all the way into the void. Not just a little bit into the void, but all the way in it. At least this way, by not changing anything, they have some semblance of control in the matter by not taking control of the matter.

Doesn’t make sense to you? Neither to me but this is what people do. I don’t get it either.

But what if you set yourself up to make failure an impossibility? Failing is IMPOSSIBLE. Desires don’t mean fiddly-squat anymore. You no longer “desire” anything and instead, you make choices.

Desire is like hope. They don’t mean shit. They are nothing and are worth nothing. But choice? There’s power in choice. And once you find your choice, that’s when to pop your chute. Hopefully in a place above the clouds. So we can be neighbors.

To circle back to our greatest fear, the fear of failure, that pretty much encompasses ALL fears, you know? It’s like the receptacle you dump all your other fears into. It can hold all of them.

I’m trying to think of a way to tie claustrophobia in with the fear of failure….hold on…wait for it….wait for it……Fear of failure to being let out? Bingo.

I learned in psych class that technically most people rank public speaking as their number 1 all-time fear. Why? Because the fear of PUBLIC failure. Not just quiet unspoken failure, but a boisterous in-your-face unmistakable FAIL that’s been witnessed by many.

Suckily enough, people’s opinions effect you whether you want them to or not. It’s harder to live down a fail the more people who coagulate towards a certain belief about you.

Anyway, I should get going to sleep. I’m beat. I’ll most likely write a shit-ton on Monday. I’ll catch you up on my life on Monday.

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I drove all the way up to Bozrah today in the pouring rain to interview a potential therapist and the goddamn girl didn’t show up. Mother Fucker. DECLINED.

But I did get a lot done while I was there. Everything in fact. Everything is done. I even got through my Booker onboarding meeting that they insisted I partake in. The guy gets me on the phone, we link our computers so he can see everything happening on my screen. It’s a big process. Not just a phone call meeting, but it’s an elaborate training session involving sophisticated software.

Him – “This onboarding meeting is very lengthy and can take quite some time.”

Me – “Okay.”

10 minutes later…

Him – “Uh well…..it looks like you set everything up already. Your hours, rooms, services, logo….you did it all already.”

I was probably the first non-dumbass he had to deal with all week. He sounded relieved.

After the meeting, I uninstalled the screen sharing app. The guy probably enjoys watching the screens of unsuspecting dumb asses who don’t realize they’re being watched. No sir, I’m no dumbass.

I drove to the nearest Walmart in Bozrah to grab some last needed items. An extension cord, a sharpie, hammer and nails, thumbtacks. Little things to help me finish off the room. Oh, and I picked up a bag of smart food popcorn, a box of 26 mini Slim Jims for 5 dollars, and a bottle of Starbucks mocha latte. I hate you Walmart. I hate you. I promised myself I wouldn’t drink anymore mocha latte’s on account of the caffeine but no. I just had to do it. I had to drink it.

I nailed the two surround sound stereo speakers to the wall, turned up the bass on my subwoofer so I can get a heavy dose of binaural beats. I set up my solfeggio wind chimes to have them clang ever so softly to a rotating floor fan set at low speed. Then, once everything was done, I laid on my bio mat to soak in the rhythm.

Me thinking – “Now it’s just a matter of time. Now I wait for the therapists to come. If I build it, they will come. Or wasn’t it “he” will come? Damn it I forgot to buy a pillow.”

Yesterday I got an email notification that someone applied to my business. I got super excited thinking that all my problems are once again solved. But no. The woman who applied was the same woman I fired a little over a year ago. She drove me crazy.

I feel bad for her. If only she knew it was my place she was applying to (again), she never would’ve done it. I didn’t read her resume because that would only make me feel worse.

*************************

My employee’s get paid 3 times next month instead of the usual 2. I’m going to have to sell groupons to make up for it. Which is pretty good timing since it’s slowing down anyway and the groupons are almost gone/expiring.

But I still worry. Every single time I worry and every single time I pull out of it and make do somehow. I spent about $3000 so far on opening up this new place. If I didn’t spend that money, I wouldn’t need to sell any groupons this month or next month. Knowing that, it makes me feel better. I didn’t just spend $3000 though. Add another $5000 I gave to my lawyer and then another $3000 on top of that for my 2 month journey away with Hana and we’re looking at $11,000 I spent on shit I don’t normally spend money on.

Armed with this knowledge, the business is doing A-Okay. Even while I was MIA for 2 months not making shit, still okay. Calm Melanie. Be calm.

But I still worry. I’ll need to give another $5000 to my lawyer soon. I know it. Then the trial at the court house. Then the verdict. And then….jail time for Melanie. Debtors jail. Do they still have that? I think in one of those Asian countries they do. You can get locked away for owing money. If they can’t pay up in a set amount of time, they go to jail.

My heart pounds in anticipated agony. Or is it that Starbucks mocha latte I drank earlier?

Today at my new office, I blasted my music and danced while vacuuming. I was the only one who came in today in the pouring rain. I felt hopeful. Hopeful and proud that I wasn’t sitting around with thumb up butt waiting to lose everything because of a black man who wears a reindeer sweater in August taken some low def shitty phone pictures in a dark room of a woman’s hairy ass leg.

I’m so glad I have an asshole lawyer. So very glad. Thank God for creating assholes!

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I gotta say something to you. I’m going to be completely honest here. You know how I said I have a new book idea? The one where Chris Pratt starts hearing voices in his head?

Yeah, that one.

Well, it’s all I’ve been thinking about lately. Here, let me elucidate…..On my way to Bozrah today, an hour drive, I drove with no music and no audiobook. Why? Because I wanted to fantasize about my story idea.

Last night I went to sleep with no audiobook because I wanted to dream up my own story.

But here’s the kicker…..Yesterday, I got home in the afternoon and laid down with my laptop to finish writing my employee handbook. And after I was done, I started watching the new Lost in Space on Netflix (which is surprisingly good!) and I shut it off. I turned off Lost in Space. Why did I turn it off? Because I wanted to think about my book!

Now, let me make sure you understand the full picture before I stop my jabbery –

I was home in the middle of the day laying in bed staring up at the ceiling for hours. Just freaking laying there! Looking at nothing, doing nothing! And I really really wanted to finish watching the Lost in Space episode because it’s actually really good but no. I freaking laid there doing absolutely nothing!

The last time this happened to me? Um…never. I can honestly say it never happened to me. The closest I can think of is when I was a kid playing with my Barbies and GI Joe’s. I didn’t want to do anything else. I was immersed in my own story land. I can still remember the stories I made up – I had my GI Joe’s battle each other for the “King of the Mountain” title. Those who won fights would get a special band looped around their ankle – a colorful rubber band that the orthodontist gave me for my braces. .

I had so much fun. I like to call it “autistic fun” or “aspergers paradise.” Weirdo little kid fun. I was devastated when I lost interest in action figures. It left a void.

But there I was yesterday laying in bed doing what I did when I was a child. I didn’t want to do anything else. I was completely immersed.

I changed up the story a bit since I last told you about it.

Here is the very brick and mortar bones of my idea:

Chris Pratt is 14 when he starts hearing voices. He’s a very dumb, but very cute, 14 year old boy. He freaks out and tells his parents about his voices. His parents are best friends with a couple who has a 21 year old daughter (Jennifer Lawrence) interning to become a child psychologist. They make little Chris Pratt see the family shrink.

Yadda yadda yadda, Jennifer Lawrence realizes that Chris Pratt isn’t crazy and that his future self is in fact talking to him. But the future self doesn’t just talk to Chris through a voice in his head, he can swap bodies with young Chris whenever he pleases and young Chris gets sent to the future to be a bed-ridden 80 year old who’s unable to speak or move his body. But time moves slower in the past, so young Chris only has to endure old Chris’s body for a few seconds at a time.

When old Chris Pratt travels back to his boyhood, he can spend a whole week there while only a day passes in his present, ergo, postponing his inevitable death a few weeks away.

Old Chris had a stroke which allows him access to travel into his past. But since he is traveling into his own memories, using his own brain and synopses, he starts to feel like the whole universe is a mere illusion in his mind. None of it’s real, just his own made-up concoction. This is one of the demons he must battle.

Also, the future Chris comes from is torn apart from war. Acid rain pours down everyday, killing all crops and wildlife. Radiation levels rise to the point where people can no longer go outside without wearing a hazmat suit. Chemical warfare poisoned the water…etc.

He feels as if he’s in hell and the only way to escape it is to fix the world, ergo, fixing himself, before death takes him and all is lost.

And another thing…..Chris falls in love with Jennifer Lawrence. Obviously. And Jennifer falls for him, but only his older self and not his kid self. The kid self is getting tired of swapping bodies with his old, sick self, which limits the time Jennifer and Chris can spend together.

One last major plot twist is…..old Chris is dying. His then wife, Jennifer Lawrence, has died already, years ago during the first chemical weapon strike from ChinoSyria. He know’s the exact date when he dies. He misses his wife. He can’t bring himself to let go of her, or his goal of saving the world. And since he can’t let go, at the end of his life, he swaps young Chris into his old man body a moment before he passes away.

This means that old Chris has made himself eternal and has already lived through 78 lifetimes by the time I start telling the tale. Each time, swapping his younger self into his old self, moments before death. He can live on forever. As long as it takes to save everyone.

That’s pretty much the gist of it. I don’t know why the hell I’m so obsessed with it. I didn’t even watch the new episode of WestWorld last night.

But I like the idea of it. To save the world, save his girl, and save his sanity from megalomaniac madness. It’s perfect! It has philosophy, politics, time travel, love, madness, hell and heaven on earth. And stupid 14-year old Chris Pratt is an LOL riot, he’s so stupid. It’s a true masterpiece.

My other book idea is also very good. It’s a spin off of Dante’s Inferno, or the Devine Comedy. It’s about a futuristic prison that uses time compressed virtual reality to take the convict through his 9 layers of consciousness with the intention of finding truth and logic to his evil deeds. Each layer is more hellish than the last. A man can spend eternity down there, hundreds of thousands of years while his incarcerated body in the real world only ages a few minutes. If the convict doesn’t awake within 5 minutes of his incarceration, there is no hope for him. No one awakes after 5 minutes and they usually die of heart failure shortly after.

The judicial system all agree that if a convict doesn’t rouse after 5 minutes, he is guilty beyond repair and must be put to death anyway. The point of the prison is to find the truth, to find guilt, and find redemption. If it can’t be found in the first few layers of consciousness, you’re pretty much screwed.

Leonardo Dicaprio was to play this part. He ends up down in the 9th circle of hell and meets himself, but himself turns out to be God. And God goes on to tell him that Leo is in fact the one and only God. And that every person alive or dead that ever existed in the universe is in fact, him. Everybody is him and he is everybody.

This story idea also involves NPC’s – virtual reality people, or robots rather. And they become sentient and find a way to enter into a persons consciousness and control their every move while the unsuspecting victim is off playing in VR.

It’s a story about good and evil, light versus dark. God versus the devil. But at the same time, it’s all relative and all necessary.

I like the idea of the story. It goes really deep. But it doesn’t keep me hooked as much as my other idea. My new story idea plays out like silk in my head. It’s like liquid heroin between my ears.

Shit, it’s almost midnight and I’m still typing away. I hate this. Stupid mother fucking Starbucks mocha latte. Do you understand me now how it effects me? I ain’t joking. Shit is real.

But when I’m ready to write my book, at least I won’t need any Adderall. Adderall is amazing, it truly is. But all’s I need is some coffee. Not even coffee, a latte.

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That’s what my new landlord called me. That I’m a type A, overachieving genius. Okay, I added the “genius” part.

If only my landlord can see me now stripped down to my skivvies with my gut hanging out. An empty Russell Stover box that once contained a chocolate Easter bunny is thrown amongst the debris in my once illustrious bedroom. Want to see a picture of my bedroom?

In the bottom right hand corner you can see my $800 bio mat that is now part of the garbage heap.

I made a list of everything I need to do today. A total of 9 items. But I woke up at 12 and by the time 2PM rolled around I decided I can do everything tomorrow.

I was laying in bed in my purple feet pajamas playing my game when my brother burst in wanting to get drunk tonight.

I haven’t hung out with my bro in at least a decade, so I couldn’t say no. He’s my bro. Family first, right?

So I got up, took a shower, and now here I am in my underwear waiting for my hair to dry so I can go out and get hammered.

All those boxes came from Amazon mostly. Supplies for my new location. I unboxed everything yesterday and brought it all to Bozrah where it now awaits its next instruction.

I have all the necessities, I just need to go to the good will and consignment shops for decor. Marshalls sometimes has some good shit.

***********************************

It’s now lots of days later. Loads later.

I just want this new place to be open already. It’s draining my will to live.

I made the mistake of posting the job too early. So early that not a lick of anything was set up yet. All my applicants found jobs elsewhere.

And another thing…..my credit card processing company will only swipe cards through a secured WIFI connection. I don’t have a secured WIFI connection. Even after describing my predicament to my landlord, still….it’s a no go.

I have to use Clover for my credit card processor because it’s the only one compatible with Booker. Clover actually bought out Booker, so yeah…

I’m trying to see if I can use a mini-swiper attached to the cell phone and if that doesn’t work, I’ll see if I can manually punch in the credit card info – which costs more to do just FYI.

It feels like I’ve spent a gargantuan amount of money on this whole thing and all these little details are fraying at my soul.

I did manage to get the whole place set up. I’ll not need to spend any more money on it. It’s done.

But I have a relatively new problem. It’s been a problem since getting back from Spain, Peru and Bolivia. I can’t seem to curb my eating habits since hanging out with Hana. I’m eating all my profits. I spend about $100 on food every 5 days just on take-out.

I’m writing this while waiting for my order to be ready at Cheshire Pizza & Ale. I ordered a small pizza and zucchini fries. Then I plan to get back into my pajamas and eat and play my game for the rest of the night. In the meantime, all my friends are going out – just about every single night – going out and having fun.

I hope I’m just going through a phase because I just want to curl up in a ball until all my shit gets straightened out. What I mean by shit is, hiring my two independent contractors and the new place is fully operational. Then I can relax. I can relax once I repair a little bit of my financial cushion. And then….oh boy….and then I just might go crazy and celebrate too big, you know? I always celebrate too big.

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After I drank them, I walked home and as soon as I got inside, I talked non-stop to my parents for two hours straight. Then I wrote my last post which makes absolutely no sense.

All from drinking two vodka drinks. It was like I was high on drugs! And this is why I stick with beer.

Anyway……I’m beat.

Sunday was Easter, my supposedly glorious day off from life. But I spent the entire day comparing online booking software for my new business. And when I say all day, I mean from 1:30 in the afternoon all the way up until 2:30AM. I couldn’t stop. And it felt like I wasn’t getting anything done. The hours slipped by like minutes – it was a time warp.

I won’t go into the boring details. Nobody wants to hear it and I don’t want to relive it. I went through so much aggravation and stress already.

After all that aggravation, I’ve decided to stick with my current online booking system. And I HATE my current online booking system. I actually fantasized about switching it. But it turns out that it really does offer everything I need.

I’m flummoxed by this whole thing. I really am.

Yesterday I met with the landlord in Bozrah and signed the lease. Then I started freaking out shortly after. “Oaf uck what did I just do? Fuck Fuck Fuck, what am I doing? Am I crazy? But the business is getting sued! I have no choice!”

Remembering that my current business is in jeopardy, made me calm down. Opening up a new massage business is the only move I can make. The rest of it is out of my hands.

I continued freaking out all the way home. I went on Amazon and bought almost everything I need. I spent over $1000 for everything. And today I’m meeting Carmen, a women from Facebook marketplace, to sell me her brand new EarthLite massage table.

A brand new Earthlight retails for $400. Basically, I break it down to the cushioning, the face cradle, and the construction is what you’re paying for.

Cheap table – $100

Face cradle – $100

Memory foam topper – $100

No squeaks – $100

So the pricing actually makes sense. I end up spending $300 on cheap $100 tables just for a new face cradle and memory foam, so I’m getting a good deal by buying off the marketplace. Just $200 bucks.

I haven’t showered or eaten anything. I woke up an hour ago. I’m supposed to be at Carmen’s house in an hour. She lives in New Haven. I’ll just wear my hat.

I went to sleep at 3:30AM this morning. I can’t sleep until all my projects are done. If I stop mid-way, I wake up not knowing what to do or where I left off.

Before I made a list of what to do and what I needed, I was stressed and confused as hell. But after I made the list, I felt alright. And after I bought all that shit last night, I’m feeling better. Finally progress. Moving forward.

I have to get up dammit.

I have to keep this list of To Do’s for my next business opening. This new business I’m opening now, it’s almost not worth the trouble. I’ll not be making much and probably end up paying out the first few months – but if I had more than one of these little satellite businesses, well, now we’re getting somewhere.

I’m thinking big. One in each town kind of big. I’m a maniac. Oh God I hope my idea works. Oh shit I really hope it works.

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Okay, It’s not that sad. I didn’t lose any limbs or anything like that.

I got sucked into YouTube last night and listened to a young girl who lost both her arms and legs from bacterial meningitis. My problem is not that bad. Then I got stuck on watching a baby born in India with two faces – again, my problem is not as bad as two-face baby.

Fuck….how the hell do I compare to that? Seriously? I’m fucking retarded. I’m sorry for the politically incorrect terminology, but I was born in the 1980’s to white Italian/German/Russian catholics who think everybody outside their family is either gay or retarded. It’s true. It fucked me up a bit.

So anyway….

I don’t think you’re retarded or gay…not anymore. And even if you are, I don’t care. Honestly. I’m above the experiences that shaped me in my past.

Today was the start of a new Mel. I was going to buckle down and start uncontrollably shitting out my new business plan. Setting it out in action. Doing this takes a great deal of determinism and confidence.

My new me not only relates to business stuff, but I was also going to start a new diet consisting of no beer or red meat.

My biggest problem, no, my biggest OBSTACLE, I whittled it down to it being alcohol and going to bed late. These are the two biggest factors stopping me from accomplishing my dreams of being rich and having a hot bod.

I only drink when I go out. When I’m around friends. It helps me in the process of feeling wonderful. And I only drink beer. So I figure if I eliminate beer, I eliminate all obstacles, right?

Well, I eliminated beer last night and found an office to rent for my new business. I also found 3 applicants, I ordered my iPad and decided to go with the Square scheduling system…all of which took a lot of time to decide – sober time. And while I was so high on life and figuring this shit out, I also realized what a shit diet I had. It was so shitty that I needed to figure out a plan that didn’t put me in an early grave where I’d need to be airlifted through the roof by a crane if I died.

Oh yes. Yesterday was one of those days of clarity. I knew exactly what needed to be done based on my personality type. I know myself enough to know what I can handle.

And I’m right! Beer and going to bed late – I swear to gawd, those are obstacles.

Hear me out for a second….

I haven’t written in a while. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve written, but they’re crappy posts that I saved as drafts. All of them are about how hungover, drunk, and fat I feel – all shit I don’t feel like ever reading again.

It’s these saved drafts – the posts that are crap – that gave me clarity for that one night. Last night.

Here’s what I learned last night:

Fist of all, it’s not all my fault.

I was working a lot at work. I had a shit ton of signature couples massages that I had to deal with, I couldn’t do anything until they got taken care of. Then my broken dryer fiasco happened. I legitimately couldn’t do shit during this time.

Another thing to consider is that I have more friends now than I ever did in my entire life!

I’m a one friend kind of person. I usually have one really good friend who connects me to everyone else. I can’t deal with juggling, don’t want to, never wanted to. But when that one friend starts hating me, then everyone starts hating me, well – I’m shit out of friends.

That actually happened to me in 2013. I was completely friendless. So I made new friends. But now, all the people who hated me are now talking to me again plus I have all the new friends on top of the old friends and not only that, but my stupid pool league has given me even more friends, which, honest to god I didn’t even want. Long story short, I put my iPhone down for a couple hours today and I had 21 missed texts from multiple sources. It would’ve been more if I didn’t respond when I did.

Now keep in mind I’m a ONE friend sort of person. It’s the reason why needy people love me so much. I gravitate to the one person who needs me the most, and forget the rest. And that one person, sad but true, keeps me from getting shit done.

I’ve been eking my way back into my 20’s. The best years, right? Wrong. They were fun as hell, but I was a complete bum.

My late 30’s are looking like my early 20’s. Who would’ve guessed?

So I vowed not to hang out with anyone until I get this new business up and running.

But then my neighbor texted me. I haven’t seen her in months! I go over, drink a bunch of martini’s and my one day of clarity comes to a close. That’s it. It’s already 1:40AM and tomorrow I have 5 clients, I’ll be dead tired when I get home. Melanie’s end of productivity.

But when my friends stopped speaking to me in 2013, I got shit done. I opened up my first business. I started traveling. I hate to say it, but friends can hold you back. It’s like you become content, preoccupied, distracted, what-have-you.

They become an addiction. You start to base your worth and value from their perceptions of you and it becomes a game. “Who’s more popular this week? Who has the most likes?”

Whoever has the most likes has the most influence and whoever has the most influence, has the most power. It’s literally social media before social media existed.

Anyway…..I hate all that shit. Fuck that shit, you know?

But I want to tell you about my new diet.

My new diet consists of no beer. I can’t have a little beer because I don’t work that way – it has to be no beer at all. I can never have just one.

And for the rest, I eat only my absolute favorite foods. Luckily enough, I crave only healthy shit.

Anise – It’s a very meaty cabbage/lettuce family vegetable. I can’t get enough of it. Topped with arugula and some kind of nut. Accompanied with blueberry and raspberries.

The only two cheeses I’m allowing myself to eat are fresh buffalo mozzarella and goat cheese.

A side of hummus for protein

beets

Lentils or quinoa if I feel like cooking something substantial and I have the time to do it

On days when I’m famished, I can get chirashi sushi from Toro, cac mon bun from Pho & Spice, or teriyaki salmon lunch box from Yougu.

mango’s, avacodo’s

I can live off this stuff. I love it that much.

Shit, I’m so tired. I gotta sleep. This will end up being another draft I never post….fuck it, I’m posting it.

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Ugh, I’m in such a pissy mood. I’m at Main Street Cafe and two guys are sitting next to me with their phones out and I swear to god it looks like they’re taking pictures of me. One of them has his flash pointing directly into my eyeball.

I’m so fucking pissed. I have a miserable scowl on my face. Why anyone would want to take my picture is beyond me, unless it’s for a miserable face meme.

Some guy ordered a raspberry chai latte with almond milk. That’s like the barista asking “How much gay would you like in your coffee?”

Man – “Yes, I’ll have that.” He dismisses the barista with a wave of his hand. His reading glasses rest above his eyebrows on his forehead.

I can’t make this shit up.

Wow I’m an asshole today. But that just made me LOL. Thanks for that friend.

I’m at the coffee shop to do my taxes. I swear there’s no other way. It’s next to impossible to do it at home – I can’t tell you how hard it is, just take my word for it.

This post is for next year, so I can speedily do my taxes in one fell swoop.

For future Melanie, 2019 Melanie, the BEST WAY TO DO TAXES:

Go to a coffee shop. Bring your laptop, a notebook, and your checkbook.

Add up all your checks.

Check all debits in your Wells Fargo checking account. Add them up.

Add up Amazon orders. Write down the amount spent each month.

Check all debits in your Bank of America Account. Write down all non-amazon, non-check debits and add them up.

Go through all paper receipts. Write them down and add them up.

Log in to Turbo Tax

I’m still on number 5. I just need to tally the numbers.

At this rate, I think I’ll be done filing my taxes by tomorrow. And then…..freedom. Sweet sweet freedom.

I’ve been having so much stress lately. I’m mostly worried about money of course. It’s always about money. But besides money, I’ve been worried about filing taxes, getting the dryer fixed, getting through all these groupon couples massages, the lawsuit, and lastly, opening up business number 2.

All of this puts me in a super pissy mood. I don’t want to do shit. I shouldn’t be around people, honestly.

The dryer is fixed, but the vent still needs to be cleaned. I’m waiting to hear back from the duct doctors.

Anyway, I should head back home. I’ll add up all my paper receipts and tomorrow I’ll go to Cheshire Coffee to input all the numbers into Turbo Tax. It’s actually not hard or time consuming, I’m just scared to see how much money I owe. I’m always scared.

I had to be in work at 9:15 today for a client. I shouldn’t complain about that since it got me out of bed and to the coffee house to do my taxes. If I didn’t have a client, or if I had a later client, I would literally do nothing all day. I’d sleep, eat, nap, watch Jessica Jones on Netflix, play Elder Scrolls online. I hadn’t had a day like that in a very long time. Today would’ve been one of those days for sure.

I massaged my client at 9:15, was done at 10:15, returned voicemails, went to the bank for change and here I am. It’s 3:50, I been here since 11. Damn! Okay, I’m going. I guess taxes are time consuming.

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Today is Wednesday. On Monday, I had insomnia. I had insomnia by drinking one small bottle of Starbucks mocha latte, an impulse buy from Stop & Shop.

When I have insomnia, my mind goes into hyperdrive.

I thought of a new science fiction story about a young man who starts hearing voices. The voice tells him that it’s himself, from the future. His future self found a way to have consistent lucid dreams and through his lucid dreaming, he’s able to go out of body and into new dimensions of spacetime. He can travel back in time but only as a voice in the head of his younger self.

I’m picturing Chris Pratt for this character. A stupid, lovable Chris Pratt. His future self is also stupid and all he wants to do is save the world, but he doesn’t know how. They befriend a psychologist who treated Chris once he started hearing voices. He thought he was going crazy so he went to see a psychologist. It was the psychologist who convinced Pratt that he isn’t crazy, and together they team up to find ways he can use his gift to better the world.

I thought about this for 6 or 7 hours. Completely immersed in my new fantasy.

It’s such a weird thing, insomnia. I normally get sleepy around mid-night and fall asleep with no problem. It’s like hitting a switch. But with insomnia, I’m tired but not enough to hit the switch and when I want to hit the switch, I can’t find it.

Yesterday I had to brave the winter storm by going to work to let the Maytag man in to fix the dryer. He told me what I already knew. That the dryer was overheating due to our ostensibly long exhaust pipe. I’ll either need to vent the dryer inside the room itself, or get an inline blower for $150 bucks. But even with the blower, it might not be good enough. I’m going to try venting inside the room, but there are also disadvantages to that such as needing a dehumidifier and constant filter changes. And the heat will be stifling.

After that, I went to shoot pool in my league. Because of the storm, we were short players. Due to this fact, I had to be the sacrifice that night. Being pit against a 6 while I’m a mere 2. I was a 2 who’s gotten no sleep! I said that I’d rather not play, and to play our 7 against the 6 instead, but our 7 didn’t want to play either.

I ended up getting crushed, but two of my buddies were there and we ended up playing each other after our matches. All of us lost last night and we cheered each other up.

The problem with exhaustion is, at some point, adrenaline kicks on. It’s a vicious cycle. Exhaustion can in fact, end up keeping you awake! I tried focusing on my audiobook to tune myself down. I wanted so badly to write last night. My mind was on fire with so many questions and idea’s.

I can’t remember what time I fell asleep. No later than 2AM, but guess what time I woke up today? 2PM! And I woke up exhausted. I slept the whole way through.

My audiobook does a great job in putting me to sleep but it also ceases my ability to dream. Dreaming is one of the most fantastic things I’m great at. With dreams, I get to learn from my mistakes. It subconsciously repairs my brain to become in sync with my desires. Like with wanting to play better pool, dreaming about pool can make me a better shot.

There’s actual studies about this. I won’t get better at pool unless I play it so much that I dream about it. It’s the dreams that make us brilliant.

I have so many stupid ambitions and infatuations.

All I want to do today is play my game and hide from the world. I don’t want to think about anything or talk to anyone. But I have a client at 6:30.